As entrepreneurship grows in America, finding the cities that
offer the best opportunities for small business can give you a
great head start. But many entrepreneurs are escaping city life in
search of greener pastures--literally. They've done the city
scene, either growing a business there or living there long enough
to know they want to start their own business in a smaller town.
And now that technology, such as the Internet, e-mail and fax
machines, allows businesspeople to operate from their cars, hotel
rooms and even campsites, many Americans are seizing the chance to
indulge in a better way of life while still fulfilling their dreams
of owning a business.

Before you head for the hills, however, ask yourself: Are you
ready for the country? If you're nodding your head
enthusiastically--and you've put in many hours of
research--then sell the house, pack the bags, gather the spouse and
kids, and head for someplace like Fairfield, Iowa. Dubbed
"Silicorn Valley," this town of approximately 10,000
boasts several software firms, an oil brokerage, a tofu maker, a
telecommunications business and a chimney supplies wholesaler--all
founded by entrepreneurs seeking a simpler way of life.

One of those entrepreneurs is Ed Malloy, a member of the
Fairfield City Council and president of Danaher Oil Co., an oil
brokerage with $1.5 million in revenues last year. Like many other
Fairfield newcomers, Malloy was attracted to the town because of
its Maharishi University of Management, which focuses on the study
of transcendental meditation.

"[This is] a very charming town with a manufacturing and
agricultural base but virtually no jobs available for the kinds of
people who were moving here," Malloy says. He believes the
primary reason so many people relocated to Fairfield--the pursuit
of a more spiritual life--engendered creativity and drive. Thus was
born a successful base of self-starters.

Small-business owners who switch to a more rural existence often
have something more secular in mind than Maharishi devotees do,
such as financial well-being. For these entrepreneurs, hurdles
litter the track. They must absorb the shock of adjusting to rural
culture, navigate the difficulties of keeping family together, and
discover new business practices necessitated by an out-of-the-way
location. For many businesspeople relocating to an area that offers
a less hurried way of life, finding the "om" that those
Fairfield residents value may prove less helpful than putting a
little "oomph" into their businesses.

Where The Buffalo Roam

The rural life has its advantages. Many small towns in states
such as Iowa and Indiana are crying out for new businesses.
Dependent for generations on sagging agricultural or manufacturing
economies, these towns need entrepreneurs and the jobs they supply
to stay economically viable. In exchange, they offer lower overhead
costs and fewer of the agonies of city life, such as crime and
pollution.

"I think people are getting fed up with where they
are," says Jon Bard, who left the New York City public
relations company he founded to become a consultant and newsletter
writer in Fairplay, Colorado. His audiotape series and courses at
Colorado Free University teach entrepreneurs how to succeed in
rural communities.

Still, the decision to move to a rural location is not without
its problems. Many who leave the city do so too quickly, before
they've put together a business plan or even explored the
region or town to which they plan to move. This lack of foresight
often portends failure, Bard warns.

Jeff Raim left behind 18 years of running various businesses in
the Tucson, Arizona, area so he could, as he puts it, "have a
life." A lifelong entrepreneur, Raim, 42, set out on a
two-year search, trekking through towns like Bountiful, Utah, and
Bozeman, Montana, until he came upon the village of Angel Fire, New
Mexico, a ski resort community with just 400 permanent residents.
After moving there in 1995, he started a mangement consulting firm,
Empowered Management Inc. Consulting with clients by phone, fax and
the Internet, Raim generated close to $250,000 in sales last year
and has nearly 40 clients nationwide.

But it wasn't easy getting started. Raim discovered, as do
many entrepreneurs who leave the city, that even the most basic
services found in the city are hard to come by in smaller
communities. Until recently, for example, Angel Fire had no local
access number for the Internet service Raim uses, forcing him to
pay long-distance charges to access the Net.

"You [rely on] things like Federal Express," he says.
"Well, overnight service to remote places is usually not
overnight." Post office boxes are not always accessible, he
says, and service industries work at their own pace. Raim has also
had to deal with an unreliable electric service, which has often
forced him to rely on backup batteries and generators to keep his
business up and running.

Wake-Up Call

Small towns may also lack a ready infrastructure or a steady
pool of qualified workers, says Tom Mason, an economics professor
at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana, who
has studied entrepreneurship for more than 15 years. "You
might like living on the side of a mountain," Mason says,
"but if your business starts growing and you need a couple of
people to grow it with, where are [you going to find
them]?"

For Elwood, Indiana, business owner Ed Escallon, the answer lies
hours away. Many of his employees live in large cities, while
Escallon's small manufacturing company, Terronics Development
Corp., remains rooted on a farm in the town of 15,000.

"We were looking for a place outside the smokestacks,"
he says, referring to General Motors' dominance of
Indiana's landscape and economy. Escallon, 53, left a job in
industrial Muncie, Indiana, 13 years ago to build his 14-person
company, which now reaps more than $1 million yearly.

The struggle to find employees constitutes one concern for rural
entrepreneurs; getting along with the neighbors is yet another.
While the added tax dollars and employment opportunities a new
company provides a small town are quite welcome, the success a firm
might bring can also have some undesirable effects. A successful
company may supersede existing firms in importance and influence,
taking away employees and even driving up home prices. Towns
sometimes offer economic incentives to lure new business
owners--money local companies might view as ill-spent.

"It could go both ways," says Terry Besser, a
sociology professor at Iowa State University in Ames, who has
conducted a study of how firms do business in 30 small towns across
Iowa. "It could be that the town is so happy to see [the new
business], they welcome this person with open arms and provide all
kinds of assistance and knowledge of the local market." On the
other hand, she says, outsiders sometimes start operating in a town
without a firm knowledge of the way business is done there. They
might find navigating their new home's social world difficult
as well: Small towns can often prove cliquish.

When Bob Wersen moved his electronic components manufacturing
firm, Panel Components Corp., to Oskaloosa, Iowa, from Santa Rosa,
California, in 1993, he went out of his way to get involved.

Despite more than one hometown businessman expressing disdain
for the newcomer, Wersen plunged into daily life. "I went out
of my way to meet people in town on their terms," he says.
"I reached out to people whenever I had the opportunity. I
maintained a very visible presence. We made every attempt to
communicate publicly with the community about [our business] and
the hiring process."

Wersen relocated to Oskaloosa as a matter of business survival.
"We needed to be in a different facility to lower our cost
structure," says Wersen, 55. "Since I was going to have
to make some changes anyhow, it looked like a good time to
relocate."

A chance 1991 meeting at a plastics convention with the
executive vice president of the Oskaloosa Chamber of Commerce led
Wersen to the town, which offered a friendlier regulatory and
political climate than Santa Rosa, as well as a better cost
structure. In addition, Oskaloosa and the State of Iowa offered
Wersen forgivable loans totaling $275,000 and 100 percent financing
on a new building.

After Wersen made his decision and returned to Santa Rosa to
give his employees the news, he faced a new obstacle: No one wanted
to move with him. And yet, Wersen says, between the outgoing
employees in Santa Rosa and the new team he developed in Iowa, his
customers were never aware the company had relocated.

Packing Up

Preparation is the key to a successful move to the hinterlands.
Location, available work force, proximity to transportation, local
attitudes and culture shock are all factors to consider. Two kinds
of people generally make the move, says Bard: One takes the time to
explore and visit; the other just drops everything and leaves.
Guess who ends up being more successful? "Preparation can
solve a lot of problems, both culturally and business-wise,"
Bard says.

While small-town life is not for everyone, it has been a
successful move for Wersen. After cutting costs by more than
$600,000, he has doubled his staff and reached sales of
approximately $13 million. In the past, he has worked on the
town's Economic Development Committee as well as with the
Chamber of Commerce. He has also purchased some outlying land for
development, a solution to the housing shortage the town now faces
because of Wersen's growing company and several other
businesses, which are all attracting more residents. "[My wife
and I] both wonder aloud `When is it going to slow down?'
" Wersen says. "I can't say I've had any time so
far to really kick back and relax."